AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX - QUALIFYING
The AT&T Williams team showed a steady start to their
2008 campaign, qualifying the two FW30s in P7 and P14 respectively.
Both drivers graduated to the second qualifying session comfortably,
but a red flag in the second session required a revised running
strategy which cost Nakajima track time and Rosberg a valuable
set of new option tyres. Nevertheless, both drivers will start
tomorrow’s race confident that they can show well, with
Nico Rosberg looking to lead the charge for all-important
early season points.
Nico Rosberg:
I am pretty happy with today’s qualifying
as we very nearly got the best out of it. I felt that coming
here would be fantastic as I hoped we could be the best of
the midfield and so we measured up against this expectation.
We had a difficult start to the weekend yesterday and we didn’t
show what we are capable of, and we still have a little bit
to come. So, overall, I am happy and we have a really good
position for tomorrow to try and score some points. It’s
going to be a tough race though for all the cars and I am
sure there will be a few problems up and down the field, but
I am confident we’ll do okay.
Kazuki Nakajima:
It was not the best result from qualifying, but at least I
took one more step forward from my debut race last year by
making it through to Q2. It was more difficult this time round
because of the red flag, but it was important for me to take
it steady today and trying to find the extra lap time to make
it into Q3 would have been quite tough. I’m looking
forward to tomorrow.
Sam Michael, Technical Director:
It was a good qualifying session from Nico. The red flag in
Q2 meant that he had to use an extra set of option tyres which
unfortunately didn’t leave him a set of the better qualifying
tyre for Q3, so his performance was not bad. He should have
a strong race tomorrow. Kazuki was also caught out in Q2 and
did not make it through to the final session, so we will have
to look at strategy overnight to move him up.
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
5.303 KMS / 3.295 MILES
WEATHER Clear & sunny
AIR 22-250C, TRACK 37-420C
QUAL DRIVER TEAM Q1 Q2 Q3
1 L Hamilton McLaren - - 1:26.714
2 R Kubica BMW Sauber - - 1:26.869
3 H Kovalainen McLaren - - 1:27.079
7 N Rosberg FW30 03–H271 AT&T WILLIAMS 1:26.295
(6th) 1: 26.059(7th) 1:28.687
14 K Nakajima FW30 04-H270 AT&T WILLIAMS 1: 26.891(13th)
1:26.413 -
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